"Che bella giornata!" Welcome to another tax-free
issue of "Only In Italy"!

That's right! Tax-free!

Wouldn't it be a better world if paying taxes was declared
morally unacceptable? Well, according to our genius Italian Prime Minister, he
thinks it's so and we've got the proof! We had to dig hard for this article
because apparently the Italian government tried to put his comments to sleep.

I receive your newsletter and love it. By the way, I'm curious... who the hell makes up these stories? Barbara

Thanks for the feedback, Barbara.

These stories are not
made up. They're all true and, yes, some do appear as if they came from a wacky volcano.

All of those stories (excluding the comments) come from real
Italian newspapers and then are translated and written into English from other
real newspapers -- not junky tabloids. We have a fresh load of that many stories
every day. We don't have to make up the stories, because there are that many
stories about real Italian people doing outrageous things in Italy every week.
Really!

Enjoy the issue, keep writing and Grazie!

Tanti Saluti,
"Only In Italy" Staff

Italians Play Gay to Avoid Army
Service

Padova - February 25, 2004 - It is not the sort of trick you
would expect the stereotypical Italian male to pull.

But when it comes to dodging the draft, machismo goes out of
the window.

Exploiting a provision which bars gays from military service,
more than 150 men are thought to have paid two doctors for certificates
diagnosing them as suffering from "sexual anxieties" and being
"incompatible" with the stress of living together in dormitories and
using communal bathrooms.

Doctors at Padua military hospital rumbled the scam when they
noticed the unusual number of gay men coming from a small area in northern Italy
in the Alto Adige region, near the Austrian border.

A police investigation found that several of them had
girlfriends or wives.

Marianna Tschoell, 60, was arrested for putting them in touch
with two doctors, Roberto Mandredi, 64, and Domenico Bossio, 38, who are being
investigated for allegedly writing the certificates for 3,000 Euros each.

Investigators fear that it may be one of many scams used by
men who, despite deep prejudice against gays, are pretending to come out rather
than spend the obligatory 10 months in the army, the carabinieri or the civil
police.

Genuine gays appear to have more compunction about using the
provision, seeing it as discriminatory. Arcigay, the main gay rights movement in
Italy, said that only about 200 gays used it each year, while 15,000 got through
their military service keeping their sexual orientation a secret.

Italian military conscripts have to undergo an attitude test
in which they are asked such searching questions as: "do you like
flowers", "do you like women" and "have you ever felt
yourself attracted to members of your own sex".

"Porca Miseria!"
What prejudice! What is wrong with allowing gays in the Italian military?

You have to love the questions, though. And you have to admit only a gay
serving the Italian military could ask those questions:

1.) "Have you
ever participated in nude soccer?" No one bothers scoring. There's just lots of contact and fouls.

2.) "Have you ever had marinara sauce shoved down your pants? If yes,
how much?

3.) "Do you love the Easter season the most because that's when they
show most of the gladiator movies?"

It's Perfectly OK to Not Pay Taxes, says
Berlusconi

Milan - February 18, 2004 - As election pledges go, it was
almost certainly a winner: don't pay tax.

The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, suggested
yesterday it was "morally acceptable" to avoid paying taxes if they
were too high, as he launched his European parliamentary election campaign.

"If we ask citizens to pay 33% tax they will all convince
themselves that it is right and a duty, that it is correct to pay for the
services they receive," Ansa news agency quoted him as saying.

But the billionaire media tycoon also told a press conference
that if taxes amounted to more than 50% of people's income, it seemed
"morally acceptable" to avoid paying.

He pledged to bring down taxes next year ahead of Italy's 2006
general elections.

Opposition politicians howled with disapproval. "This is
clearly an instigation to break the law," said a Left Democrat, Fabio
Mussi. "It is a crime not to pay taxes. It would be good if Berlusconi
remembered that."

"Minchia, Finally!"
This is fantastic!

You know, those lovely lawmakers in Rome usually "poop plenty" about
their politics but every once in a while someone comes along and makes shocking
good sense!

The Prime Minister's absolutely right. I'm glad morals and tax paying are
finally mixing. We've been waiting for this since the days of Caesar. On my next
tax return, I'm going to declare my taxes are too high to pay therefore; it's
against my morals to pay them!

Imagine if this kind of religion begins to spread in the world? But it could also be scary...

Could it be that all that TV show makeup he wears finally sunk into his brain and forces him to say more and more incoherent things? Does he realize he's sending political ethics back 2000 years?

Fresh
Italian cookies for Easter straight from Italy! Easter is on it's
way so finish off the big feast with Italian gourmet almond, fig &
pistachio cookies. Baked and shipped from our little bakery in Italy to
you; all natural, fresh, and baked to order. Whatever your favorite
Italian gourmet cookie is, Adriana's bakery will satisfy.

Naples - March 4, 2004 - Naples is my kind of city. A
risk-taker's paradise. A crime-ridden labyrinth. A beautiful, death-haunted
shambles. At all times it's little more than a Hail Mary away from getting puked
on by Mount Vesuvius, the stroppy volcano that bears down on it from across the
bay. They say that it's this permanent threat of death and destruction that
makes Neapolitans live for the moment. It also accounts for the widespread
superstition (many Neapolitans wear a red amulet shaped like a chili pepper or
hang them over doorways to ward off evil).

It's the Keith Richards of cities, a menacing, espresso-crazed
circus clinging tenuously to a fierce slope. No wonder they call it the human
anthill. One million highly strung, shouty people letting it all hang out on
every street corner, gesticulating wildly in secret coded gestures: pure street
theatre. The perma-roar of clapped out vespas and cars that couldn't give a hoot
about traffic lights. Dubious gents in silk suits wandering about with
shell-suited bodyguards. Monica Vitti look-alikes strutting their stuff in
too-tight jeans, ostentatious gold jewellery, black-market rip-off Dolce &
Gabbana bags dangling from their perma-tan shoulders. Shifty-eyed entry-level
Camorra (local mafia) selling contraband cigarettes in the gloriously dodgy
Spanish Quarter. The omnipresent smell of pizza baking in wood-fire ovens
complementing the roasty, blissful perfume of local coffee Kimbo wafting from a
million over-worked cafetieres. Colorful washing lines billowing prettily over
the city's endless maze of poorly lit alleyways and side streets like Buddhist
prayer flags.

I love Naples so much that I've had it written into my will
that my ashes are to be scattered there. My friend Larry, citing the infamous
expression "See Naples and Die", pointed out that I'd gone one better:
I was going to see Naples once I had died.

"Gesu!" He's not kidding! Naples
should be declared another country! It's marvelous:

- Grown men running around with their shirts half-buttoned; thatís instant
birth control.

- It's the number one car-jacking capital of Italy. Last year, Naples had the
equivalent of 5000 car thefts for every 100,000 residents. When you read a
statistic like this you begin to realize that the people in Naples are stealing
cars from people driving stolen cars.

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